Midnight Sessions by Unnamed Magician and False Anchors

This brand new release from False Anchors Productions is the work of Unnamed Magician. The writing style and format for the book is unique and really leans into the mysterious man concept. The effects in the book are taught through these fictional “midnight sessions” where a masked and cloaked person meets the author and challenges him to figure out the magic he performs for him. The reader gets to experience what it would have been like to be in the author’s shoes because after the performance is described, a list of conditions is provided. The reader is highly encouraged to sit and think about possible solutions before turning the page to discover the secret. 

I really enjoyed this mix of fiction and storytelling in a magic book. It made it fun to read and kept me entertained throughout. It took these tricks that are a little dry and made them exciting. 

That brings me to my first big point about the effects. These definitely feel like the intention is to use them to fool magicians. They are fooling for laymen, but with a couple of exceptions, there are not any presentations attached and most of the emphasis is on how impossible it is. If you’re looking to fool local magic club members, this book is going to be a goldmine for you. If you mainly perform for laymen like me, you’ll have to be creative to make your spectators care about these routines. This isn’t a bad thing, just something to be aware of. I think of them as blank slate methods that I can apply my own presentations to.

Three Pile Location: A Classic Improved

This is the Unnamed Magician’s take on the Automatic Location from 1938 which was also featured in the Royal Road to Card Magic and Expert Card Technique. The spectator shuffles the deck, cuts it into three piles, shuffles the first pile and remembers the top card, shuffles the third pile and places it on top of their selection, and finally puts the second pile on top or bottom before cutting the deck as many times as they want. The really fooling part is that he allows the spectator to riffle shuffle the deck before he looks through the cards to find the selected card. 

He also teaches how you can do the same effect with two selected cards. The big thing he’s adding here is that the spectator can riffle shuffle the deck at the end. If you’re familiar with the classic automatic placement principle, you’ll see why this should be impossible. His method makes use of something he calls the DURS Principle. Not only does he explain the effect, he also breaks down the DURS Principle and explains exactly how and why it works. You will need a deck with certain properties to use this principle, but they also teach a really easy method to make any deck work. This isn’t my favorite routine in the book because it involves a little too much counting on the performer’s part for me, but it goes to show how his thinking elevates a classic.

Three Pile Location: On Steroids

It’s the three pile trick again, but this time, they can shuffle all three piles as they assemble the deck (but they can’t shuffle the full deck at the end.)

This is a big improvement over the first to me. The performer no longer has to count any cards, and even though the spectator can’t do a riffle shuffle at the end, the fact that they get to shuffle all three piles makes a key card completely impossible. He also teaches a variant method that allows the spectator to shuffle their card into one of the piles if they wish. The method he uses here he calls the DDSD Principle. It allows the performer to do divided deck routines from a deck that is genuinely shuffled at the beginning. It’s very clever and fooling.

Three Pile Location: On Meth

This is once again the three pile location. But now they can cut their selection into a different pile.

This is the most difficult of the three methods. It involves remembering three key cards and a lot of counting. You can even add in the DURS Principle from the first version to allow them to shuffle the cards at the end, but that makes it even more complicated (even the author calls it the most cerebral version.)

Obviously in this section, you get three methods for one effect. The intention wouldn’t be to perform all three tricks for one spectator. Of the three, I like the second one the best because it’s the easiest to do in the heat of the moment. All three require that your spectator can follow specific instructions and they take careful guidance to make sure things don’t get messed up, but all three versions would have definitely fooled me if I had seen them performed. 

Dual Control

A spectator cuts around a third of the deck, shuffles it, and remembers the top card. They cut half of the remaining deck on top of their card to bury their selection. Another spectator then takes the remaining cards, shuffles them, remembers the bottom card, and puts the stack on top of the rest of the deck. The deck can now be riffle shuffled and cut. Impossibly, the performer can still spread through the deck and locate both selections.

This is one of my favorite methods in the entire book. It’s simple, logical, and effective. It is easy to have the spectator perform the required actions, and it is easy to find the selections at the end. Several variants are taught including using the DDSD Principle to allow the deck to be shuffled before the trick begins, and using the DURS Principle to allow 3 or 4 selections to be controlled. We also get a full breakdown of why the Dual Control Principle works.

Rain Man

The spectator cuts off a group of cards from a deck to randomly choose a number. They silently count how many cards they cut, and put their cut off pile in the middle of the deck and thoroughly shuffle the deck. The performer now “memorizes” the deck. To prove this claim, the spectator names their number and the performer immediately names the card at their number as well as the cards around it.

This is a simple trick to do that feels different than the ones that have come before it in the book. I think it’s because this follows a more ‘classic’ approach and has some thought about the presentation. The method is easy, sure fire, and still fooling. There are three versions taught: a memorized deck version and two non memorized deck versions. I don’t know if I’ll perform it, but I do think it is a convincing method of “memorizing” a deck of cards.

Spectator Locates Magician’s Card

The spectator shuffles a deck and gives half to the magician. The magician and spectator shuffle their cards under the table, look at and remember a card, and shuffle their card back into their stack. The magician writes down his selected card so that he can’t cheat. The magician and spectator swap packets and spread through them facedown, removing a card that “feels right.” The magician is able to remove the spectator’s card, and the spectator is able to remove the magician’s card which is verified by checking what he wrote at the beginning.

This is a very clean version of this effect. The paper is never switched and the spectator has a free choice of any card. It’s a very nice routine that is very fooling. I think most magicians who see this will be fooled by some parts, but there is some cleanup required at the end to be able to have a normal deck.

Spectator Locates Magician’s Card Again

This is the same effect as the previous one, but in this version, the cards never leave the spectator’s sight.

This makes use of a very gimmicked deck to make the magic happen. You’ll have to make the deck up yourself, or buy another marketed trick to get the deck you need. It’s a fine method, but I prefer the first method to this one. Personally, I don’t think the effect warrants carrying a one trick pony deck, but if you have a spot for it, it’s a fine method that is fooling.

Spectator Locates Magician’s Card Yet Again

Same effect as before, but this ends with a completely examinable and normal deck.

Of the three, I think this is the most fooling. The only downside is the magician can’t write down their chosen card like they can in the other two versions. However, the card the spectator removes as the magician’s is left under the table until after the magician names their card, so it seems impossible that the magician could know what the card is. I saw a performance of this, and it fooled me badly. The really clever thing here is that the deck is shuffled before, during, and after the trick and it is a normal deck at all times meaning there is nothing to clean up, and the deck can be used for any of your other routines.

An Unfathomable Premonition

This is an odd trick with three decks of cards. One deck is used to select a value, one deck is used to select a suit, and one deck is used to reveal the card that is made when the selected value and suit is combined.

I say it’s odd because it involves three decks of cards which feels like a lot. Luckily, there are two variants taught that only use two decks. The selection process is fair despite being unorthodox. My only qualm with this is that it bears a lot of similarity to a David Regal trick that I used to perform back in the day, and in my opinion, David’s trick has a better reveal of the selected card. This reveal feels a little ho-hum to me. With how much effort is taken to make a random card, I’d want the reveal to be knock-your-socks-off memorable and I don’t think this is it.

Behind the Back Location

The spectator selects a card from a deck and thoroughly shuffles it into the deck. The performer takes the deck behind his back and locates the selected card.

This routine and the ones that follow are deceptive primarily because the spectator is free to shuffle the cards any way they like to lose their card, and it makes absolutely no difference at all to the performer who will ALWAYS be able to find their card behind his back. This first method is simple and to the point.

Behind the Back Location Again

Same effect as above.

This method is more unique than the previous version in more ways than one. It is specifically made to fool magicians with the conditions. There’s a little bit more going on here including a great way to know a selected card and a unique peek.

Behind the Back Location Yet Again

Same effect as the other two.

The main method here is the same as the two before it, but what changes is how the selected card is known to the magician. This method is really clever and seems impossible. You can even combine it with a method from the previous version to make it even more impossible. 

While these all appear to be the same trick of a magician locating a selected card behind his back, what you are actually getting is three really clever ways to know a selected card that has been chosen and lost in a fair manner and one method for finding it behind your back. If you’re not a fan of the idea of finding a selected card behind your back, you can use these methods of knowing a spectator’s selected card for other effects. Maybe you have an index and use the knowledge of their card to pull their selected card from the index and load it into a wallet or box or etc. The possibilities are endless once you break apart the first half of the effect (knowing the selected card) from the second half (finding it behind your back.)

Totally Impossible Location

From a shuffled deck, a spectator cuts about a third of the deck and shuffles the packet they cut off. They then remember the top or bottom card and put their pile on the table. They pick up the remainder of the deck, shuffle it, and put the third they cut off into the middle of this larger part of the deck. They cut the complete deck as many times as they want and riffle shuffle the deck. The magician spreads through the deck faceup and finds the selected card.

This is another very clever location. It does truly seem impossible, and yet, it’s very reliable. You also get a variation that allows you to have two cards selected as well as an essay on the workings of the Waikiki Shuffle that’s used in this routine.

Totally Impossible Location Again

This follows a similar path as the previous effect except instead of remembering the top or bottom card of the cut off portion, they can cut that portion and peek at a card in the middle of their packet before losing that packet in the middle of the larger. They can then cut the deck and give it two riffle shuffles.

This is genius. It’s a step up from the previous location because the spectator or magician couldn’t know where the selected card is in the cut off packet. The variant method is particularly great because it makes it even easier. They shuffle the deck thoroughly, cut somewhere around the middle of the deck and remember the card they cut to before replacing that cut off section. They then cut the deck as many times as they want and give the deck two riffle shuffles. You still find their card every time. I absolutely love this. It feels so impossible and yet it's very easy to perform. This is my favorite from the book.

Signed Behind the Back Location

Another behind the back location.

This is different from the others in the book because this one relies on a sneaky gimmicked card to do all of the work for you. The idea presented in the book is that you’d have multiple gimmicked cards that match various common decks so that you could borrow a deck and do the trick with their deck. That would make this a huge magician fooler, but for the average person who probably isn’t performing for people who carry decks around, this is probably not necessary. Instead, you could have one gimmicked card hiding in your deck at all times just for this. It’s a clever gimmicked card that could be useful in a lot of tricks.

Essentially, the card allows the spectator to shuffle the deck as much as they want–overhand or riffle shuffles–and you’ll always have complete control over the chosen card. 

Long Distance Telepathy: Under Test Conditions

This combines the unfathomable prediction from earlier with a “wizard” type effect where the spectator calls one of the magician’s friends and without the magician ever uttering a sound, the person on the phone knows what card has been selected.

The fun part of this method is the coding system that the Unnamed Magician has created. His code tells the person on the phone which of four possible choices has been made despite the magician not making the call and not saying a single thing. He goes over a few different options for this code and all of the options are smart.

Long Distance Telepathy: Under Test Conditions Again

This is similar to the previous effect, except in this version, there is absolutely no code needed.

This method is a more classic method allowing the person on the phone to need no memorization. They can just read off of a script you send them and they’ll look like a hero.

Long Distance Telepathy: Under Test Conditions Yet Again

This is a “wizard” effect done with drawings rather than playing cards, and we don’t get the method explained. Instead, we get an ominous note saying some tricks are best left a mystery.

The book concludes with the aptly named Concluding Remarks, an Afterword by David Britland, and a note from The Unnamed Magician himself.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I had a great time reading it, the photos and illustrations add to the vibrant story telling, and the overall look and feel is fantastic. The effects included within may not be the most captivating from a performance standpoint, but all of the methods are strong enough to be able to add your own unique presentations to the effects to give you some incredibly fooling magic. I can genuinely say I would have been fooled by every single routine in the book and that is a very rare thing. Especially with it being a book on card magic. 

The book comes in two versions. A standard version at $60 here:

https://falseanchors.com/collections/current-selection/products/midnight-sessions-standard-edition

and a Special Edition at $100 here:

https://falseanchors.com/collections/current-selection/products/midnight-sessions-special-edition